Monkeypox Vaccine Heads to Latin America

Denmark-based Bavarian Nordic A/S announced today an agreement with a Latin American country for the supply of the two-dose JYNNEOS®  (MVA-BN, IMVANEX®) monkeypox vaccine.

This is Bavarian Nordic's first bilateral supply agreement for the JYNNEOS in Latin America, outside the scope of the contract entered with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in August 2022. 

Paul Chaplin, President and CEO of Bavarian Nordic, said in a press release on October 3, 2022, "Vaccinating against monkeypox has been a key element in tackling the outbreak."

"And we are extremely pleased to reinforce our commitment to the region and increase the availability of our vaccine through additional supply agreements."

Through PAHO's Revolving Fund for Access to Vaccines, the unnamed Latin American country will gain access to JYNNEOS vaccines in October, and deliveries under the bilateral agreement will start in December 2022.

Separately, the PAHO has requested additional JYNNEOS doses to be delivered before the end of 2022 to expand access for its member countries.

The U.S. CDC confirmed on September 27, 2022, that 803,596 doses had been administered in reporting U.S. Jurisdictions.

JYNNEOS is the only U.S. FDA-approved non-replicating smallpox and monkeypox vaccine for military and non-military use.

However, it is not commercially available in the USA.

Monkeypox is a rare disease discovered in 1958 caused by infection with the monkeypox virus (MPXV), which is part of the same family of viruses that causes smallpox.

Monkeypox symptoms are similar to smallpox symptoms, but milder, says the CDC.

The CDC has reported 26,049 monkeypox virus cases in the USA and two related fatalities since May 2022.

Other MPXV outbreak news is posted at Monkeypox Today.